I have a female green cheek conure. She's just been weaned and I brought her home a couple days ago. She's very skittish and doesn't seem to want to come out her cage. I visited her a lot while she was being weaned and was trying to teach her to step up. Still not having much luck with that. When I go to try to get her out of the cage, someone who has had birds told me that I may have to force her out until she is comfortable leaving the cage. Is this true? Or should I wait until she chooses to come out? One day I had her out and she didn't want to go back in. She just kept hiding in my hair and kept trying to peirce my ear. Any advice would be appreciated.

The person who told you to force her out shouldn't have any birds because birds (and most especially parrots which are so smart and have such long memories) should never be forced to do anything. Many years ago, we used to use these methods but they are no longer recommended (they are now called flooding techniques and are a no-no).

Are you handfeeding? Because, if you are not, you should be. It's a fabulous bonding technique and the bird needs the extra nutrition (breeders wean way before the babies are weaned in the wild -it's like feeding adult food to a puppy just because it's already eating on its own -not a good idea!). Sit as close to her cage as you can without her getting all tense or backing off and talk to her. Offer her a treat of something like a good quality whole grain bread and a syringe with a mixture of handfeeding formula and pureed baby food. Don't stick your hand in the cage, just open the door and wait for her to come out on her own. I am surprised that a baby GCC doesn't want to be on you because, going by the way they are (VERY needy), she should. Is the cage at your eye level? Because if you loom over her, you will scare her. Same thing if you stick your face close to the cage and stare at her (this is something only a predator would do). You need to put your face kind of sideways when you sit with her and look at her out of the corner of your eye while leaving the door to the cage open and speaking to her in a soft voice. It's just a matter of patience and time and not scaring her or forcing her to do anything she doesn't want to do.

My two little conures are fabulous and I am madly in love with them. Max, the one year old black-capped conure, once out of his cage will NOT let me out of his sight. I read "Birds off the perch" and the authors discussed the possibility of one's bird playing quietly on their cage top. I would like to be able to move about the house without Max becoming distressed and flying to find me, but that may be an unreasonable behavior to expect of a conure. Gus is our yellow-sided GCC who is two years old (+) and has molted out beautifully this year. His reds are RED, yellows are YELLOW, and blues are BLUE. When Max flies to find me, the flock effect takes place and Gus usually follows. I don't want to leave them alone in the house for long periods, but just being able to slip into the bathroom or get a drink of water while playing with them and not have them feel the need to follow me everywhere would be nice. Sorry this is all over the place, but I would love some input from conure folks about whether or not one can anticipate a conure to remain on his cage or if that's just not in their nature.Vanessa